1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to telecommunications, and more particularly, to the operation of a wireless device capable of communicating with multiple networks.
2. Background
The demand for wireless information services has led to the development of an ever increasing number of wireless networks. CDMA2000 1x is just one example of a wireless network that provides wide area telephony and data services. CDMA2000 1x is a wireless standard promulgated by the Third Generation Partnership Project 2 (3GPP2) using code division multiple access (CDMA) technology. CDMA is a technology that allows multiple users to share a common communications medium using spread-spectrum processing.
A competing wireless network that is commonly employed in Europe is Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). Unlike CDMA2000 1x, GSM uses narrowband time division multiple access (TDMA) to support wireless telephony and data services.
Some other wireless networks include General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) which supports high speed data services with data rates suitable for e-mail and web browsing applications, and Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) which can deliver broadband voice and data for audio and video applications.
These wireless networks can generally be thought of as wide area networks employing cellular technology. Cellular technology is based on a topology in which the geographic coverage region is broken up into cells. Within each of these cells is a fixed base transceiver station (BTS) that communicates with wireless users. A base station controller (BSC) is typically employed in the geographic coverage region to control the BTSs and route communications to the appropriate gateways for the various packet-switched and circuit-switched networks.
As the demand for wireless information services continue to increase, wireless devices are evolving to support integrated voice, data, and streaming media while providing seamless network coverage between wide area cellular networks and wireless local area networks (LAN). Wireless LANs generally provide telephony and data services over relatively small geographic regions using a standard protocol, such as IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, or the like. The existence of wireless LANs provides a unique opportunity to increase user capacity in a wide area cellular network by extending cellular communications to the unlicensed spectrum using the infrastructure of the wireless LAN.
In general, a cellular wireless device capable of providing seamless coverage over a WLAN may operate differently depending on which network it is connected to. This is due, in part, to each network's use of its own unique protocol for communicating with the wireless device. By way of example, a user on a wireless device connected to a cellular network may initiate a telephone call by entering the phone number and then pressing a designated key on the device. The same wireless device connected to a WLAN may require the user to press a different key to initiate the call once the phone number is entered. While the call is in progress on the cellular network, a tone received by the user may indicate another incoming call. The user may then place the active call on hold while answering the other incoming call by pressing the appropriate key. When connected to the WLAN, the user may need to press a different key in response to multiple tones to answer the incoming call. Thus, a user operating a wireless device in this geographic landscape may be need to know multiple procedures for the same service. This places a heavy burden on the user. This burden may be reduced with a wireless device that works the same way regardless of the network connection.